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POD HD500 connection for best reproduction of amps
by FAB-4-FAN on 2012-05-29 23:34:40.8200

I'm a POD HD500 owner and for the 2 years I've had this thing I've been searching for a way of amplification that doesn't color the amps in any way. I've been making patches with some studio quality headphones and I'm suck between the DT50, the tech 21 Powerengine 60, and a couple of good PA speakers any suggestions as to how I could achieve quality reproduction without coloring the sound at all or at least very close to no coloration?

All help is appreciated! Thx

Re: POD HD500 connection for best reproduction of amps
by DarthHollis on 2012-05-30 04:36:12.7450

If you get any kind of "guitar amp" like the DT-50 or the Tech 21 you will need to change your patches. Some drastically and some not so drastically.

If you get PA speakers they should not color the sound very much. You can often times go to into the speaker and then from that directly to a PA which makes things easier.

The only thing I would mention is that the DT50 sounds fantastic and you can go to the PA directly out the back of the amp and that sounds great. What I do is have a separate set list. All the effects and settings are exactly the same as my "home" patches but I change the amps to be pre-amps with no cab simulation. There is a lot less tweaking this way.

If you get PA speakers, get the best one(s) you can afford because it will really make a difference. Also, take you POD HD and try it out at the store.

Re: POD HD500 connection for best reproduction of amps
by Rewolf48 on 2012-05-30 05:25:54.7180

Full Range Flat Response speakers (FRFR) are what you need to reproduce your headphone defined tones as best is possible.

But it ain't that simple:

The headphones are a closed environment consisting of just the headphones and your skull; once out of the headphone speakers the sound bounces around in your ear canal, squeezes past that lump of ear wax and vibrates your ear drum. Then after a few more bits of biology your brain interprets the signals as sound.

Now speakers of any type are mounted in a cabinet thats sits on something and the sound that they produce bounces off any reflective surfaces in the room before they get to your ears. Stick a powered PA speaker in a tiled cube shaped room containing nothing else and you get a ton of room reverb and your sound turns to mush, stick that same speaker in the middle of a field and you hear almost nothing especially at the bass end. Stick it on a concrete floor you get one bass response, stick it on a (strong) empty box you get a completely different response.

Play the sounds at 30db (whisper quiet) it sounds thin, if it can manage to play sounds at 120db+ (ears will ring for hours or days afterwards) it sounds bass and treble heavy.

What I am saying is that no matter how perfect the speaker is, the environment and volume level change the perceived response in your ears, and you will have to tweak your patches - sorry but that is life physics.

If you only play electric guitar (as opposed to running and acoustic or Variax simulated acoustic) then the DT25/DT50 or PE will also do a very good job, but they cannot reproduce the higher end frequencies so will require some tweaking to account for the speaker change in addition to the environment tweaking.

High Quality Powered PA Speakers that include some tone controls are the best compromise as you do the tweaking once to make the sounds work at a reasonable volume then use the PA speaker tone control for room and volume adjustments - e.g. turn the volume down turn up the bass and treble to allow for fletcher-munson effect and turn them down if you need to raise the volume, and then tweak a bit for the room tone which if you are lucky changes between soundcheck and gig because now there are loads of sound absorbers in the room.

Re: POD HD500 connection for best reproduction of amps
by jimsreynolds on 2012-05-30 12:36:57.0100

Good info and rationalle there from Rewolf.

The information above may not be current, and you should direct questions to the current forum or review the manual.